What anime do you watch?

Country roads, take me home ~~

Wanting something chill, this anime is a remake of older anime that was made back in 2003. Having watching that, and remembering several important plotlines, i would say this anime is not for everyone.

The story barely have any setup. You just need to know that our protagonist is a girl that travel around with her bike which can talk. Pretty much this bike character is sole reason for this series to have something interesting. Mainly because our protagonist was supposed to emotionless and doesnt react much to the weird countries that she went. That said, this is the main reason why i felt the series still not something i could enjoy despite it is supposed to have good source material.

Most of human / countries in this anime is truly bizarre, especially with their own unique rule. Their mind are so freaking twisted that made me want to just shoot every each of them. That said, aside from some episodes, this whole season felt very flat. Some of episodes was supposed to be tragic, and yet it failed to bring the mood needed. This pacing was rushed also considered bad as the source material supposed more thought provoking explaining how those human supposed to represent our real life.

Should watch this? Im not sure, as it was boring for me despite I can stand many slow burner anime. It felt it have potential but didnt bring anything new or interesting to the table.

Alternative :
Majo no Tabitabi - An adventure of traveling witch
Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou- A lonely journey of 2 girls in empty world
Somali to Mori no Kamisama- A little girl & her guardian journey to find safe place
Violet Evergarden- A journey of girl to survive in real world

Bonus: (I forgot to show link to original adaptation MALhere :

This video explained exactly why i had issue with this new adaptation.

MAX Resonance obtained.

I wanted something cute as one of the next criteria. Im aware of this anime for a while now and Im surprised it took long time for me to finally start watching anime it.

Incase you dont understand by my joke lines above, lets just say that this FEEL VERY CLOSE to my heart. As someone who work in video game development & having several sleepless night to finish a game just feel so close to me. At first I thought it will be just another cute girls doing cute girls, but there are a lot of emphasize on working adult stuff. And with main character who wanted to be optimistic to be hardworking in her job, made my day as I was aimlessly working from home nowadays.

The artstyle is quite excellent for moe series which I considered as one of the most polished one. The best part is that the comedy & anime direction is exactly fit my funny bones. Not in sense of something make me laugh hard, but it just freaking adorable. The huge cast of various different characters that have different background job have remind me of hanging out & having fun with person from different department. The story of they finally released their video games bring a joy to its ending.

If the moe artstyle seem attractive to you, then I highly recommend this series. The star was aligned for me, thus it is of my most enjoyable anime for a while now.

Alternative :
Runway de Waratte - Another series that uplift my spirit last time
Shirobako- Another anime about anime production
Blend S - Cute girl working in a cafe
Working - Variety character working in family restaurant

Im on purposed plan to watch 2nd season a bit more slowly so it will etch to my mind longer. As I mentioned, this anime sting my heart a lot especially with subject matter.

2nd season start abit more serious as now our newbie character from first season are given a task to be a character designer. There is some challenge as the team wanted to create a whole new different game, thus giving more roles to new people. With more responsibilities, of course there will be a lot more challenges as you need to lead & communicate with your team as well as work together with other team in same studio. The season cover another type of game development that finally we show its fruition in final episode.

Again, this anime managed to remained cute while being realistic to real work environment. Despite not being fully details with every aspect of the game development, but it gave just enough for viewer to understand the struggle. While I considered this season might be weaker on playful side, the serious part is kinda good and carry whole season. Granted with couple of cast additions, the character development are only focused on some of the characters, especially when the newcomer is looking forward to their senior.

No doubt i feel like season 2 is much more stronger & more suitable to other people who disliked moe stuff. If you ask me, this 2 season is definitely one of the best anime balanced between work, slice of life, comedy & moe. Especially with high quality production.

I'm kind of tired of manga atm. I tried a couple, but I'm mostly annoyed by most stories currently because of 1 major issue that can be found in almost all stories nowadays.

First one is Lady and the Beast. It's about a female emperror who reincarnates a couple of decades later into a poor noble house. Only for her to be sold to a richer noble house as the duchess, where she discovers that the duke has fallen ill to a curse that turned him into a mindless wild wolf. Thanks to her fighting knowledge she easily subdues the wolf and after some time, the duke magically returns to his human form when they both shared a bed.

So far, everything's alright. I don't mind a strong female lead in a story, especially when it's explained why she became that way. But what annoys me most is the male lead. A 35 year old virgin duke whose thoughts are displayed as follows:

► Show Spoiler

I swear, I did not swap the thought bubbles.

Which brings me to the point. Why do modern stories try to make males look weak all the time? It's no wonder so many people (both males and females) start confusing their genders/gender roles when they are shown this kind of thing from a young age.

Next is Dr. Queen, which I just dropped after chapter 2. Because there was a male patient literally covering his male boobs in front of a female doctor. :lol:

And that story takes place in switzerland.

You gotta have mental issues if you're ashamed to show your upper body as a male in front of a woman, especially when you're portrayed as beautiful. I mean... did that person never go to the beach? Or the public pool? And what did that person wear in case they actually did go there? A onesie? :lol:

And both stories are korean, so it's not about the typical japanese cultural difference, where the slightest touch in public is looked at as lewd.

I don't know... I'm kind of pissed off because I can't enjoy stories anymore after I started noticing this pattern. I mean it's okay for woman to be portrayed as mentally strong. Good on them. The woman in the story has fewer hormones than most women and have clear thoughts all the time. Fine by me.

But why are males constantly portrayed as mentally weak and controlled by their insecurities and emotions, when that's usually the very minority? And worse: What does that power fantasy have to do in a romance story? Or much rather, most romance stories? I mean come on... as if being mentally weak and indecisive makes women flood from their lower lips :lol:

And no, I agree that males have insecurities, too, but lol, covering male boobs is just utterly ridiculous. I saw that kind of thing in Japanese stories as well, but mostly used for comedy, whereas Dr. Queen doesn't portray it as a joke, but as a serious issue for the protagonist.

I don't know... I need to read something good that doesn't make males look weak all the time. Maybe I'll start reading Kingdom. I only heard good things about it.

Because nowadays we live in a world of emancipation, where women can vote with money just as well as men. So content creators have to balance between "old school" and ladies needs for emotion-invoking stuff. Imho.

I guess you missed an era where wussy protagonist male among female harem was a norm.
Come on, you a chick magnet and yet you acting like have nothing to go for.

As for the topic, that nothing new. Genres exist for a reason.
If you want your "IM AM STRONG" male protagonist, you watch / read shounen
If you want more mature, you watch seinen (although seem like moe stuff is seinen lately)
If you want more girlish stuff (including stuff like BL), then you check shoujo,
if you want over the top male / female, you might find some in ecchi (H) or some gag comedy. Not all though.

tl;dr genres exist, you need to find specific tag that fit you.

paolo12 wrote:Because nowadays we live in a world of emancipation, where women can vote with money just as well as men. So content creators have to balance between "old school" and ladies needs for emotion-invoking stuff. Imho.

As I said, imho it's fine that women have the same rights as men. Power to women all the way.

What I do not understand though is why the power of women has to result in the feminization of men. I mean, let's look at the 1st manga I mentioned objectively: Is that really what women want? A handsome, powerful (as in status), rich guy who is as easy to manipulate as a schoolgirl since he has no free will of his own? This is so ridiculous. Because that can never happen in reality. If a man has social status, he can't be easily manipulated. One of those traits cancels the other.

If that is truly what women want, that's just chasing unicorns :lol:

On the other hand, if that isn't what women want, why is such a thing even written? What's the goal of the author?

iwansquall wrote:I guess you missed an era where wussy protagonist male among female harem was a norm.
Come on, you a chick magnet and yet you acting like have nothing to go for.

As for the topic, that nothing new. Genres exist for a reason.
If you want your "IM AM STRONG" male protagonist, you watch / read shounen
If you want more mature, you watch seinen (although seem like moe stuff is seinen lately)
If you want more girlish stuff (including stuff like BL), then you check shoujo,
if you want over the top male / female, you might find some in ecchi (H) or some gag comedy. Not all though.

tl;dr genres exist, you need to find specific tag that fit you.

Nah, I didn't miss that era. And I'm not missing it either. I'm annoyed by those kinds of protagonists to this day.

Shounen: I'm kinda annoyed by most shounen protagonists tbh. Luffy is imho the best Shounen protagonist possible. He has so much more depth than most others, which is why One Piece kinda ruined most other shounen for me.
Shoujo: Been there, seen too much, not again.
Seinen: The ones I read so far are most of the time everyday kinda type stories which bore me most of the time. Not really a fan of seinen tbh.
Ecchi: Can't say much against that. :lol:

MY CHILDHOOD RUINED!

This series is one my old school shounen favourite. One of the main reason is the unique gothic illustration i kept seeing in old magazine that is pretty details for that time like this one below. A very striking black & white usage and very unique :

► Show Spoiler

The series adaptation ended long time ago, 8 years before airing of this series. On one side, I feel very happy because finally able to see continuation, but on the other hand, when i saw the the amount of episodes, i know it wouldnt enough to cover all story until the end. Regardless, as I grew older, of course Im gonna have different expectation than younger me. As you see on my joke line above, I would say that Im kinda disappointed with this season or maybe story adaptation in general.

Shounen anime is pretty well known to be drawn out for many episodes, so when i saw several arc finished super fast, it felt rushed. Especially when you considered that season contained one the most important arc in whole series. Lets just say that the story development is a whole mess. We got a more political & religious aspect, as well as the situation between the good guy & villains. Most of the important characters are left abandoned as it mostly focused on main characters. Out of 13 episodes only 1 of the early arc & final episodes have a very good quality. Oh, i shouldnt forget how combat fights tend to be revolved around YELLING SO FREAKING MUCH.

This season got high score on MAL solely because of the fan & source material. As anime adaptation, it have so many problems that I would considered as average. Skip this, I assume you never watch original series after all.

*Bleh, a typo on picture. It have 13 episodes, not 12.

All aboard the hype train.

Several explaination I have to make about my situation atm. My country just finally released from lockdown, and we finally allowed to watch movie in the cinema. While anime movie generally aired very limited, this movie have freaking 4 halls in one of my local cinema (usually reserved for famous movie).

A bit brief history about this series. This is considered on one of most famous shounen in the community (at least based on cosplay event of that year). So I kinda have a bit high expectation while watching this. I also know that because the constraint adapting a manga instead of anime original, there will be bound of difference between the movie & source material. The story is continuation from first season, which 3 guys task for their "hashira" to investigate a mass killing by demon, onboard of Mugen (Infinite) train.

Without spoiling much, lets just say there are 2 major arc in this movie that i felt might have a several weak points from its source material. Lets just say I try to see from what kind of theme the movie have, and I couldnt find any for 2nd part. Only protagonist alone that I felt have enough character development, which lead to several emotional moment. The 2 hours might be not enough to adapt this 2 arc (about 6 normal anime episode) which lead the aforementioned pacing issue.

Should you watch? Yes, but dont set your expectation too high. I still think first season is overall a better package, even some of weaker arc have better structure than this movie. Animation & soundtrack carried this movie hard.

The magnificent ten.

This time around, im on purpose picking up a strong / good score anime. I heard abit about the anime since the writer of the novel also write a novel about another anime that i watched recently.

This anime is a sports anime, but not the traditional shounen type who focused on intense competition or using some quirky ability to beat their opponents. Since the setting is around college / university, definitely this anime will be more mature in the general. It all started from a simple goal of our protagonist to be the best runner. However, he was greeted by weird senpai who wanted to create a team of runner from all of the dorm tenants. It is seem in the beginning as everyone isnt fit and lack of motivation.

As we go every episodes, the wacky / weird setup will be toned down and the story focused more on character driven. We will learn why everyone is who they are and it is their goals to be bonding to eachother to become the best team and beat the competition. Studio that made this anime (production I.G) is already well known in deliver quality anime, while i think perfect for this series as it is more toward realistic story & artstyle. While the story might be slow, this fit nicely as it dive into the struggle of each main casts.

If you like character driven seinen tags, this is probably of rare sports anime you can get. I personally felt hyped while watching it that me wanted to be better and reach my goals.

*Sorry for poor formatting atm, im rushing for some stuffs atm and writing as fast as possible.